Saturday, August 28, 2010

More Open Government with Google Maps

Iconomical is a web design company that specialises in data visualisation. The company have produced two excellent Google Maps to help visualise UK Government data.

Research Funding ExplorerThe UK's Department for Business Innovation and Skill has produced a great Google Maps time-line to show research funding in the country over the last ten years.

If you press play on the time-line (below the map) you can view an animated visualisation of where in the UK investment has been made. As the animation plays a heat map is generated on the Google Map and a bar chart besides the map is also animated.

London Gazette - Pollution Prevention & ControlThe London Gazette is the UK's official newspaper of record for recording and disseminating official, regulatory and legal information. Iconomical have produced a data visualisation tool that lets users browse the paper's Pollution Prevention & Control notices.

The visualisation shows all notices for 2008 and 2009. The papers are shown stacked in a time-line beside a Google Map. When you select a paper from the stack you can view the same notice on a Google Map to help find the location of applicants and where notices were issued.